A fraudster who tricked a couple into thinking she was carrying their surrogate baby has been jailed for two years.

Samantha Brown, 25, promised to act as a surrogate mother for Benita and Mark Cutter from Hull.

Brown, of Tain, did not fall pregnant and instead strung the couple along for nearly a year by sending them fake baby scans and lying about hospital appointments.

Her scheme cost the married couple more than £8000. At a hearing at Inverness Sheriff Court on Friday, sheriff Margaret Neilson sentenced her to two years in jail plus one year of supervised release.

In January, Brown admitted fraud and inducing the Cutters to pay her a total of £8,307 in fake expenses between June 25, 2013, and April 20, 2014.

Commenting on the case, Natalie Smith from Surrogacy UK said: "It's absolutely heartbreaking but extremely unusual. The majority of surrogacy arrangements in the UK are extremely positive and work very well.

"The couple have been defrauded and taken advantage of. It shows the dangers of not researching surrogacy properly or making the proper checks.

"If a couple comes to us we do police checks, we need a letter from their GP and do medical tests as well.

"We insist on three months minimum getting to know each other before they start trying to have a baby so there is a really a solid foundation of trust and a good relationship built first.

"In some cases you can go it alone but you really should go through an organisation like Surrogacy UK.

"I hope it won't put people off because surrogacy can be an extremely positive experience."

Brown was jailed last year for shooting her neighbour in the head with an air rifle during a row over seagull and the fraud sentence will run consecutively to her current sentence, which ends in February 2017.